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| Clingmans Dome and dead Fraser trees |
The sky remains overcast today, but it looks like the rain
will stop. We travel to the Sugarland Visitor Center. After the dryness of
Colorado, everything here seems moist and green. The visitor center offers a
lot of information on trees, flowers, animals, birds, and insects in the area.
We head up the road to Newfound Gap, the main east-west road of the park. The
clouds start breaking up and we get some reasonable scenic views. Our target is
Clingmans Dome the highest point in the park at 6300 feet. As we climb, the
trees possess fewer and fewer leaves – you can tell we’re getting higher.
Unfortunately, Clingman’s Dome is surrounded by fog. The Fraser fir trees there
are unique to this area, and have been transplanted to northern reaches of the
U.S. and Canada and are considered typical Balsam Christmas trees. Here the
firs have been attacked by European adelgids (bugs) and most of the mature
trees have died.
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| Smokey Mountain view |
We head back down to the Roaring Fork Auto Tour. Another one-way
road, but the emphasis on this tour is communing with nature. Lots of potential
stops to take a short hike or just listen to nature. Since it’s late in the
day, we only make a few stops before heading back to our Cade’s Cove campsite.
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